Babelgum IPTV service now open for business - first impressions : Tech Digest

The latest peer-to-peer TV service in an ever more crowded marketplace has opened for business today - Babelgum.

Babelgum is financed by Italian telecoms magnate Silvio Scaglia, with ad-supported channels bringing in the cash, as well as money from content providers - or so they hope. It's not the full launch, Babelgum has opened its doors to beta testers in limited numbers. So if you want to get an early look, get in now. You need to download the client (around 13MB - PC only), sign up with a few basic details and away you go.

Once you're in, it's a very slick-looking set-up. There's a good range of channels to choose from, including news and sport, lifestyle, fashion, music, documentaries and 'fiction', which is essentially movie and drama. When the client kicks in, everything goes full screen, but you can select a smaller screen size if you want to view whilst checking your emails. On a standard home connection, both sound and vision are very good quality, no stalling or buffering in the time I was viewing. And best of all, no error messages.

Hopping between channels is easy enough, with the screen laid out like a large remote control. Click a channel or scroll through them all. And when you've have found what you're looking for, a click of a button removes the remote functionality from the screen. Content is family-friendly, with a policy of nothing offensive and 'adult' and you can make your own smart channel for the areas you're most interested in. But the problem with these services in their infancy is what to watch - if you're a Sheryl Crow fan, you can check out her 'Live In London' show. But apart from that and away from the reasonable news coverage, it's predominantly minor league documentaries and features right now.

But let's give Babelgum the benefit of the doubt as it's still in beta. Technically, it works very well and should be straightforward to use for just about anyone. But whether you would want to watch it for more than 10 minutes with its current schedule is open to question. Certainly one to keep an eye on though.

Babelgum website